The last great bubble

Bitcoin is in a period of consolidation at the bottom of the long-term channel. Movement will seem sideways and down until indicators signal the next wave of adoption. Sentiment will remain low.

A : Medium-term consolidation

Resistance to growth remains through February and part of March while bearish and moderate performance causes increased price stability. Two descending wedges are broken before bullish sentiment can return.

Two descending wedges are broken--drawn from the 2017 ATH and the January 2018 breakdown—and moderate to bullish sentiment pushes bitcoin to a new ATH . ATH is established somewhere between 20K and 28K USD. A new wave of adoption from new markets is identified. Full capitulation from alt market speculation exposes frivolous Crypto Assets.

The ascending wedge between the 2017 and 2013 ATH is difficult to break. It’s EXTREMELY LIKELY that following scenarios take an additional 10 months. Price targets for an extended scenario are substantially higher.

C : Price is pushed over 50k sometime between June and August or as late as November 2018

Bitcoin's user base rapidly grows. It’s fueled by new growth and a new wave of users. Segwit and Lightning adoption demonstrate 100x increase in possible transaction support while significantly decreasing transaction fees. LocalBitcoin processes 20 to 40 million USD in transactions daily. Press praises Bitcoin as a tool ready or nearly ready for “Main Street.” A use case for Lightning in retail businesses is implemented in some markets.

D : Bounce off the top of the channel between July and October, or as late as March 2019

The speculative fever lasts and Bitcoin hits the top of the long-term channel for the first time since November 2015. The new ATH is somewhere between 90k and 200kUSD. The extended scenario sets a price target of 500k USD.

Hitting the top of the channel signals a long-term bear market and moves the price into a comparatively moderate range, well under 100K USD. Bouncing off the top of the channel completes before speculation about the halving takes hold of sentiment in early 2020.

By the end of 2020, 1 million USD price targets are commonly issued from established financial institutions in the United States.

Kommentar:
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The parabolic trend is over, a 2 year trend in the making is done, its a big deal. It already reached mainstream media critical mass in December. Commercials with bitcoin mentions, late night shows, everyone and your not so tech savvy relatives know about bitcoin already, Tai Lopez selling bitcoin courses with his ads all over Youtube. I just don't see how a new wave of buyers can come around in such a short time frame.

"Everyone" is not aware of Bitcoin's existence. "They're" certainly not aware of how it works and "they" don't own any of it. "They" don't have a practical use for it in their lives and "they" don't know how to get it. "They" don't care to find out.

"Everyone" is aware of gold, and even then, most people don't care to go out of their way to acquire it. If they had the means, then maybe. If everyone were aware of Bitcoin then it would be speculated on similarly to gold because global rates of adoption would be amazingly high. It's not, and it won't be for a while. We can only bust at the seams for so long until we must cool off.

We, Bitcoin, are licking our wounds and getting a plan together so the next round of this is handled better. Infrastructure is improving, and will continue to improve. The hash rate will continue to go up, and more people will find a practical use for bitcoin.

A sudden drop in speculative fervor is not the same thing as having a clear majority of your infrastructure curl up and die overnight; which was caused by one of the largest international thefts in history (and gross incompetence) ... and then the government of 1/3 of the world’s population, where most of the trading and mining is happening, fucks with you endlessly.

@jarederaj,
1. Bitcoin will never have 100% market participation,. A recent study shows 60% of Americans have heard or read about bitcoin: of these 60%: 5% own bitcoin. At what point will bitcoin reach the mainstream awareness you are speaking of? 100% know and 100% own AND use? When you buy your groceries with bitcoin? Same study 60% of these buyers bought with price appreciation in mind, not for spending.

2. Searches for buy bitcoin outpace buy gold right now, suggests more individuals are already speculating on bitcoin over gold. Still nowhere near a 7.6 trillion market cap.

3. As hash rate goes up so does the energy consumption, on pace to consume more electricity than New Zealand end of 2018 at 42 TWh. 1 bitcoin transaction using the power consumption of a home for a week. The future is here.

4. Only will be clear in hindsight as with most speculative bubbles

You can continue to buy into the notion that there will always be a x10 fold increase in buyers in what 6 months as you outlined in your post? Bitcoin is running out of the majority demographic that buys bitcoin.

To add on to point 1. 71% of buyers are male, 58% of these individuals between the ages of 18 to 34. To think you can find a x10 increase in this buyer demographic by June this year... LOL.

1. Nobody is arguing that bitcoin will have or needs 100% market participation. Americans are not the only people in the world. I need to see a source on the numbers your showing for rates of adoption in the United States. The figures being right or wrong doesn't say a lot about the argument that i'm making about Bitcoin's potential peak market cap in the next two years.

2. Search trends a trailing indicator for short-term trends. They are not reasonable figures to reference in this discussion. Also, discussion about global rates of adoption and arket saturation would need to be discussed, not just the United States.

3. As the hash rate goes up security is added to the network. It's no longer reasonable to talk about Bitcoin transactions as individual transactions on the network You need to consider all the off change transactions and sidechain transactions. This is especially true as Lightning becomes more relevant and transactions are batched to multiple addresses. TIme will likely show the hash rate increases at a rate that's below the rate of actual transactions (as opposed to what you see on the core blockchain).

4. Useful networks have a tendency to increase nodes over time. To show that Metcalfe's Law doesn't apply to Bitcoin will require that you show the network shrinking in size and the hashrate dropping over time. We should both be able to agree that short-term fluctuations in rates of growth are insufficient evidence.

5. You don't need 10x increase in "buyers" to see increased network activity, demand, and value. I'm not arguing that there will be more buyers. I'm arguing that the technology will be used more, and that it will prove to be functional at higher rates of use without fees going up.

6. If the market is 71% male 58% of those are between 18 and 34 then the market is focused and young. I bet a substantial percentage of that is not ethnically, culturally or politically diverse, too. There are a lot of people in the world who do not fit these descriptions.

@jarederaj,
1. first link
2. one of the few indicators of buy interest and market participation
3. the network isn't anymore secure than any other blockchain. You can send $ over any other network with just as much confidence.
4. the price can reach a tipping point where it is no longer profitable to run mining equipment, uh oh, all that hashpower is gone
5. bitcoin is akin to a social network, treat it like facebook, you need x10 users to get x10 ad revenue.
6. A terrible demographic, financially inexperienced

1. "Respondents for this survey were selected from the nearly 3 million people who take surveys on the SurveyMonkey platform each day." So, Americans willing to take online surveys with survey monkey. I wonder if the assumed error is accurate. Findings are irrelevant anyway.

2. It's a trailing indicator. It doesn't project future performance, it reports past performance. If you want to see current performance you have to look at the network activity.

3. Security professional beg to differ. Security is significantly better. Code quality is substantially higher, too. Each block is significantly more optimized for BTC, too. Many more ACTUAL transactions happen per BTC. Alts are effectively side chains because a vast majority go back into BTC after they more through other markets.

4. This has never happened. Fluctuations in the hash rate are normal.

5. That's a spurious claim

6. Non sequitur. Are you expecting to see Baby Boomers adopting new financial technologies? House moms? I don't see how this supports your argument.